Welcome to American Grand Jury

Relax, this is not the real grand jury where you have to swear on the bible and take an oath to keep proceedings secret. A lot of the opinions that you share here as well as your personal analysis of facts presented to you is going to be shared in public. This is the precise opposite of how grand juries work.

Grand juries in the United States, as you know, were created to stem and control, or even downright resist, the power of the state. A lot of America's institutions were really just reactions to how the British treated the American colonists. It was not pretty.

There's a reason why the Fourth Amendment is such a big deal among Americans because search and seizure was not some sort of one-off thing that the British colonial authority engaged in once in a blue moon. In fact, it happened all the time.

People would just show to your place, take stuff, and it's anybody's guess what they do with the things that they have taken. They may have taken your papers, they may have taken your records, they may have taken your money, they may have taken your property. All sorts of nightmare stories were recorded back in those days.

The moment the American colonists freed themselves from the British, their attention instantly turned to what they can do to prevent such state power from imposing the same level of repression, suppression and misery on their populace. The Fourth Amendment is one of these responses.

The Fourth Amendment simply states that if the government wants to search your place, it has to get a warrant. There are many exceptions to this, but generally speaking, if the government wants to search your records, track down your online habits or otherwise find private information about you, it has to get a warrant.

A warrant is a legal document giving permission to the state to engage in certain activities. It is a narrowly tailored document that is signed off on by a judge. In other words, in the United States, personal privacy is a big deal. It's definitely a thing.

I raise this issue with you because American Grand Jury is all about reliving what it's like to be in a grand jury.

Because the grand jury is a legal mechanism that enables the state to do what it needs to do, which is to figure out law breakers, arrest them, and process them in the court of law, but do it in such a way that lines up with the constitution. The constitution, of course, has The Bill of Rights, which acts as a serious limitation on the things the state can and cannot do.

To say that this website is a celebration of everything that is awesome about the American system would be an understatement indeed. We truly celebrate the fact that we live in a country that truly respects individual rights.

Believe it or not, the constitution of the former Soviet Union was actually more liberal, giving, generous and humanitarian than the American constitution. The problem is, anybody can spout out words, anybody can write words, anybody can make promises. It takes quite a bit of effort, attention, discipline and commitment to actually come through.

It's one thing to say a promise, it's another thing entirely to keep it.

And americangrandjury.org is nothing short of a celebration of the fact that the American system, despite its flaws, systemic inefficiencies, and downright cruelties at certain times in history, have, by and large, followed through.

This is the reason why people from all four corners of the globe flock here. They know that this is a country of laws. It doesn't matter how rich your family is, it doesn't matter whether you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth or whether you were born in a pit. You are treated equally by the state.

This is not exactly a distinctly American innovation, mind you. We can credit the Magna Carta of the English for that innovation.

The whole idea of everybody being under the law and the king not being above the law is a distinctly English idea. Don't get it twisted. Don't mix that innovation up with the United States. What we can say, with all seriousness, is that we have really taken that idea very seriously.

There are many countries in this world with seemingly functional legal systems, but let's face it, if you have no money, it's going to be very hard to find justice. Your life is going to be cheaper than somebody who has connections, who is protected by the political class, and who has a lot more money than you. That's the bottom line.

And it really saddens us that the United States, and essentially only a few dozen countries in the world, operate with the rule of law. And believe me, this has more to do than just the application of the law. This has more to do than equal justice. It also has something to do with the fact that people respect the law.

These are the things that we celebrate here at americangrandjury.org as we present hot news items of the day for people from all political stripes and all political backgrounds to share their opinion.

This is what we slice and dice and dissect because we know, just like a grand jury, every little bit counts. Every point of view matters. And that's precisely the kind of environment we would like you to enjoy.

Because it's too easy to think that your opinion really doesn't matter all that much. It's easy to think that you should just leave it up to the experts because they make it their job to slice and dice information and otherwise engage in intellectual heavy lifting. Well, you're doing yourself a big disservice if you think that way because, at the end of the day, as long as you have a brain and you know how to read and you know how to reason, that is good enough.

Because in the final analysis, it's the collective brainstorming and group analysis that really fleshes out the truth. It really goes a long way in explaining what truly is happening in the news, what agendas are being championed, what interests are being protected or being attacked, and we can get to the heart of the matter.

Unfortunately, any single individual will have a tough time doing this. Oftentimes, the value of an idea grows exponentially when it is shared by two different people.

When two different people from two different backgrounds with two different ways of looking at the world look at the same set of facts, all sorts of magic happens. That's the kind of thing that we're trying to get going here at americangrandjury.org.

Consider this as some sort of online grand jury. It's a peanut gallery for the hottest and latest political news. This is no place to be shy.